The U.S. Navy lifted its blockade of Iran on Thursday. This raises one small question. When did the Navy start blockading Iran.
Blockades require declarations. They require international notification. They require the President to tell Congress he's committing an act of war. None of that happened. The Navy was just sailing around the Strait of Hormuz doing what it always does. Now Trump says they stopped. Stopped what. Existing near Iran.
This is the geopolitical equivalent of your neighbor announcing he's no longer planning to burn down your house. You didn't know he was planning it. He wasn't planning it. But he'd like credit for not doing it anymore.
Retail traders saw the headline and immediately started scanning for oil stock plays. They pulled up their Robinhood apps. They googled "Iran blockade ETF." They found nothing because there is no such thing. Then they bought shares of something called Global X MSCI Iran anyway. That fund doesn't exist either. They bought a fitness app with a similar ticker.
The technical setup on WTI crude didn't change. The 50-day moving average didn't flinch. MACD kept doing whatever the f*ck MACD does. RSI stayed overbought or oversold or neutral. Nobody knows. Nobody ever knows.
Iran's ports were never blocked. Ships moved in and out the entire time. Oil tankers sailed. Container vessels docked. The global supply chain continued its slow march toward complete collapse for reasons entirely unrelated to the U.S. Navy's proximity to Iranian territorial waters.
The headline exists so Trump can say he deescalated something he escalated by saying it was escalated when it wasn't. The blockade that never was has now ended. Traders will spend the next week arguing about what it means for crude. It means nothing. It meant nothing. It will continue to mean nothing at every timeframe on every chart forever.
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